May 2012

May 26, 2012

On a still modest budget of around $200,000 for a three-week event, the San Francisco International Arts Festival has managed to jam our May calendars with dance, music and theater since 2003. For a variety of reasons, this year I had to miss two of the major dance events. "Raices Profundas" was an apparently rocking celebration of the history of dance and music in Cuba; Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos' "Homenaje a los Flamencos de la Bodega", a memory-filled evening of the time when the now legendary Olde Spaghetti Factory in the City's North Beach was Flamenco heaven. Still, even the more modest productions, often seen as shared evenings, offered refreshing perspectives on new choreography.

May 25, 2012

When Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg danced “Giselle” together , the sheer physical beauty of dance was married to poetic drama, taking us beyond the simple pleasure of watching to the stuff of mind and imagination.

Once again, they only had one chance. Hallberg and Osipova danced a single “Giselle” at ABT in 2009 that many considered among the best single performances of the ballet they had seen. One hoped to see more of them together when the 29 year old Hallberg leapt to become a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, Osipova’s home company. But a month later Osipova left the Bolshoi to join the lesser known Mikhailovsky Theater Ballet of St. Petersburg. It was up to ABT to stage their reunion, if only for a few performances this spring.

May 24, 2012

ABT's season is showing a company in transition, as many of its male pricipals leave--Jose Manual Carreno last year, Ethan Stiefel and Angel Corella this year, leaving only a few men tall and elegant enough to be princes. The answer, at least this year, is to import a number of guest stars, avoiding last year's situation, where Marcelo Gomes did a number of Bayadères in a row. (Of course, there are some who think all Gomes all the time is a first rate artistic policy, but I can see it would be a little nerve-wracking for a company director.) ABT paired the Russian-born, Royal Ballet trained Vadim Muntagirov, currently dancing with the English National Ballet, with Hee Seo, in her New York debut as Nikiya and with Isabella Boylston, also in a New York debut, as Gamzatti.

Even in the pure-dance air of the New York City Ballet, costumes are important, and the recent triple bill showed a variety of dressings. The first ballet, Peter Martins' new "Mes Oiseaux", was dressed by the dress designer Gilles Mendel, and featured three girls (Lauren Lovette, Ashly Isaacs, and Claire Kretzschmar, all corps dancers) wearing chic black cut-out leotards over colored skirts. They were partnered by Taylor Stanley (another corps dancer) also wearing black. The costumes were simple and flattering, though the girls did without tights, making their legs look pale and knotty--this current trend is always unflattering. But bare legs were not the only issue. Dancers need something to dance, and "Mes Oiseaux" ("My Birds" in English), is a generic collection of unconnected steps which shows little about the dancers. Certainly Lauren Lovette has proved, in other roles, that she is distinctive and gracious dancer, but Martins has her do the same, twitchy steps as Isaacs and Kretzschmar, and it is impossible to tell what drew him to these particular dancers. Yes, they all have great extensions and fluid backs but appear to be completely devoid of personality. Stanley danced with all three dancers (the debt to "Apollo" is obvious), but, since he spent most of his time either hoisting them up by their crotches or dancing with his back to them, all he conveyed was a cool disregard for his partners, reinforced by the finale, which seemed to end in a shrug. His choreography looked like he had been tossed a bunch of moves, which in turn he tossed back at the audience.

May 17, 2012

ABT's sturdy and vivid production of "Giselle" featured a young cast for the Wednesday matinee; two soloists (Hee Seo as the poor wili and Simone Messmer as Myrta) and a youngish principal, Cory Stearns in his New York debut as the duplicitous Albrecht. These dancers have only performed their roles a few times, but imagination, understanding, theatrical intelligence, not to mention technique to burn, gave this performance a coherence and dramatic intensity that was very moving. Stearns' first act Albrecht was young, impulsive and a bit petulant; he did not like Wilfred's plea to remember his station, and almost stamped his foot in exasperation. But he was genuinely in love with Giselle, gentle and attentive, as if he were afraid of frightening her. Stearns was able to make it clear that this was a very young, thoughtless boy, who thought that he could bluff his way out of things, and he was shocked when everyone, except the loyal Wilfred, blamed him.

The theme was French at New York City Ballet’s spring gala. With the atrium of the theater decorated as a flowery parterre for the after-the-performance fête, the program featured a pair of new ballets by Peter Martins and Benjamin Millepied before an evening-ending performance of “Symphony in C,” originally made for the Paris Opera. Each of the new ballets was based on French music and both were half an hour long. Millepied’s was a provocative neo-Romantic composition based on a new score from Nico Muhly commissioned for the occasion. But the challenge from the younger man evoked Martins’ best work in some time and his ballet was the evening’s better.

May 10, 2012

Introdans, the contemporary dance company based in Arnhem, the Netherlands and making its New York debut at the Joyce, has a lot going for it. At the top of the list are the vision and tenacity of its founder Ton Wiggers. Forty years ago, he saw that Arnhem’s dance lovers flocked to touring performances by the national dance companies, and decided that the city should have a dance company to call its own. So Introdans was born. Its first four decades have not been without growing pains, but the company now boasts royal patronage, strong, conscientious dancers and a varied repertory of works by internationally known names (Twyla Tharp, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, etc.).

The situation was straight from a backstage musical. Sara Mearns’ debut in the waltz in “Serenade” was to be Friday night’s event at New York City Ballet. Then just before the curtain came the announcement that due to injury she would not dance. Disappointment hung in the air with the murmurs and groans. Yet a luminous "Firebird" by Maria Kowroski changed all that. With Ratmansky’s new “Firebird” at American Ballet Theatre due to premiere one month from now, Balanchine’s version looked better than it has in years.

May 08, 2012

Terrible images can be so beautiful. “Strange Cargo” is the final segment of Paul Zuštiak’s “Painted Bird” trilogy, based on Jerzy Kosinski’s haunting novel about a child who wanders alone in the ruins of post-Holocaust Europe. In the cavernous, spooky Synod Hall, weaving dance and light, music and text, Zuštiak has summoned Kosinski’s ghosts and images for a third and last time.

May 03, 2012

Kota Yamazaki’s “(glowing)” does just that: it hovers in a place between light and shadow, and produces a soft warm energy throughout. The Butoh-trained Yamazaki uses its tradition: darkness and light, and deliberate pace, as his mooring – but just as a starting point. The black and white costumes and deep shifts between light and darkness evoked contrast; the message and movement yielded connection.